Society has become extremely dependent upon computers and the electronic document information that they provide. As used herein, the term electronic document is broadly defined to include any form or type information that may be electronically read by a computer. For example, the term electronic document includes, but is not limited to, emails, web pages, calendar information, word processing documents, pictures, news articles, television programming information, or any other type of information that may be electronically read by a computer. The electronic document information may exist in a variety of different content formats, that includes but is not limited to HTML, XML, WML, Microsoft Word®, WordPerfect®, JPEG, GIF, or any other format that can be electronically read by a computer.
Recently, a movement has been made to allow users to remotely access this electronic document information through the use of “wireless” devices. For example, wireless devices, such as wireless lap-tops and a variety of different hand-held devices, often referred to as “Highly Constrained” devices (e.g. cellular phones, Palm Pilots, PDAs, etc.) have recently been developed to provide users with the flexibility of remotely connecting to, and accessing a multitude of resources from potentially anywhere in the world. For example, using a cell phone a user may connect to the Internet or other private network to access electronic document information from almost anywhere in the world. As such, these wireless devices make it possible for users to continue to perform their daily activities even when they are located outside their normal business environment.
However, a drawback with using these wireless devices is that a user has no easy method of generating a paper “hard” copy of the electronic content for which they have access. For example, while waiting in the airport, an individual may use a wireless device to connect to a particular rental car web site to make a car reservation for the city of their destination. In making the reservation, the user is typically presented with a web page (electronic document) that defines the specific terms of the reservation and the confirmation number that has been assigned to the reservation. For many individuals, a hard copy of the web page is desired. However, because the wireless devices are generally not configured with a printer, the user has no way of generating a hard copy of the electronic document.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for a mechanism that allows users to obtain hard copies of electronic documents that are remotely accessed through a wireless device.